William LYSAUGHT [1836-1910]

Submitted by David on Thu, 08/25/2016 - 17:36
Names
Given
William
Family
Lysaught
Sex
Male
Status
Deceased
Born
Date
(Day & Month are approximate.)
Birthplace (town, state)
Newmarket, County Cork
Birthplace (country)
Ireland
Died
Date

His death was reported in The Hong Kong Telegraph, 1910-06-24, page 12:

Death of Mr Wm. Lysaught
An Old Hongkong Resident
21st inst.
The death took place at his residence this morning of Mr William Lysaught, an old Hong Kong resident. He was a native of Newmarket, County Cork, in Ireland, and was born in 1836. He came to Hongkong in 1864 and therefore been a continuous resident in the Colony for close on fifty years. The late Mr Lysaught never once left Hongkong since his arrival here forty-six years ago. For thirty years, during 1864-1894, Mr Lysaught was in the service of the Naval Yard Police, retiring into private life after his long service in the Naval Yard. Mr Lysaught suffered from an affection of the heart to which he succumbed this morning.
The funeral took place this afternoon. The remains of the late Mr Lysaught were laid to rest in the Roman Catholic cemetery at Happy Valley. Numerous floral tributes and the large circle of friends at the grave side testified to the esteem in which deceased was held.

Connections: This person is ...
Spouse of
Isabella / Isabel Rosa DIXON / LYSAUGHT (née PEREIRA) [c.1841-1917]
Parent of
Maria Antonia RAMSEY (née LYSAUGHT, aka Marian/Marion/Marianne) [1870-????]
John Joseph LYSAUGHT [1875-1918]
Elizabeth Johanna GIBSON (née LYSAUGHT) [1871-1946]
Kathleen WALTERS (née LYSAUGHT) [????-1919]
Lilian CATTANEO (née LYSAUGHT) [????-????]

Photos that show this Person

clara cattaneo William Lysaught great grand niece
????

Comments

I just ran across your enquiry on relatives of Wm Lysaught and I am happy to say I am his great grandson Anthony (Tony) Ramsey. My father was Alfred William Leonard Ramsey, pow during the war and his mother was Marian Lysaught daughter of William. He had 8 kids and 2 step kids!
Please let me know what info you are looking for specifically so I may help. I am also interested in knowing more about my family roots.

Best regards and merry Christmas.

Tony Ramsey.

Hi Tony,

Good to hear from you.

For more about William Lysaught, I recommend you get a copy of Patricia O'Sullivan's book, Policing Hong Kong – An Irish History. (You can click that link to order a copy.) Chapter 5 is titled "The really enterprising Inspector Lysaught" and is all about William and his family. The family are mentioned elsewhere in the book too.

Please could you list the names you know of William's 10 children, together with any dates of death & birth if known?

We've got a page for your grandmother, https://gwulo.com/node/34209, and I've just made a page for your father under your account at https://gwulo.com/node/39690

If you can add any of their photos or stories of life in Hong Kong to their pages, we'll enjoy reading them. Any stories of their experiences in wartime Hong Kong are especially valuable. You might be interested in the wartime diaries to read other peoples' experiences of that time: https://gwulo.com/node/39540

Best regards, David

Hi Tony,

I have a story and a mystery involving your great grandfather William Lysaught and my wife's grandfather Frederick Patrick Daly. Frederick was born 3 Oct 1879 in Hong Kong the son of Septimus Daly. Septimus arrived in Shanghai in 1862 and rose from a clerk to an independent broker there. He fathered 3 children between 1873 and 1879 (Frederick and 2 sisters Norah and Helen) though there is apparently no record of their mother's name.  Septimus amassed a small fortune through his business in Shanghai and in 1884 he married Jane Du Moulin Fearon there in an Anglican ceremony and soon after moved to Sydney, Australia.  The passenger list for their passage from Foochow clearly shows that the 2 girls accompanied him to Australia while Frederick was left in China at the age of 5.  In fact it appears that Frederick never rejoined his father and nothing further is known of his life until he is baptised into the Catholic faith at Chapel of the College of St Joseph in Hong Kong in 1894 at the age of 15.  Unfortunately, if Frederick attended St. Joseph college any record of his time there would have been lost with other records in the fire.  Here is where your great grandfather enters the picture as he is listed as Frederick's godfather on the baptismal certificate.  It would seem that there may have been a strong relationship between Frederick and your great grandfather particularly since Frederick subsequently named his first born son William.  We can't help but wonder if you may have encountered any mention of a boy named Frederick being raised in William Lysaught's household.  We suspect that there may have been a link between Frederick's mother and Isabella Lysaught's family line.  In the interest of brevity, I have omitted further details of the saga which we could explore if you like.

Best regards,

Gary

Patricia, to whom David refers in his entry dated last month above, is actually visiting Hong Kong at the moment & I shall be meeting her on Saturday. If anyone has a query which you would like me to pass on to her, please let me know soonest.

There was an interesting article in last Sunday’s SCM Post magazine by Stuart Heaver, concerning the Gresson St shootout in Wanchai in 1918 in which policemen ancestors of Patricia’s  were involved. Patricia is mentioned in detail throughout the article and last Monday she laid flowers at the grave of her ancestor killed in the shooting, who is buried in the Hong Kong (formerly Colonial) Cemetery.